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If you want to feel like you're buying an iMac but you don't want to drop the cash (or if you're waiting for the 27-inch version), we've got you covered today: first we told you what it was like to try to get one early this morning, and now that we've succeeded in our quest, we're going to walk you through taking the new computer out of its box.

Apple is known for paying close attention to the packaging of its products, and while other computer makers have improved their own boxes quite a bit in the last few years, new Apple boxes are still noteworthy enough for a picture tour.

The first thing you'll notice is that the new iMac's box is thinner than the old one, but not quite in the way you'd think. The old box was perfectly rectangular, but the new box is trapezoidal, with a wider base and narrower top. This seems like it would make the computers difficult to stack up if you've got a lot of them.

Remove the styrofoam block and you'll get your first glimpse at the computer. Older iMacs would need to be yanked upward out of their boxes at this point, an annoying process especially for the large, heavy 27-inch models. Not so anymore: the new box has a front face that falls completely open.

Enlarge/ The front and back sides of the box aren't actually attached to one another.

The styrofoam in the bottom of the box is also a bit different than it was before. Previously, there were two big chunks of foam that grabbed at the base of the iMacs and didn't want to let you pull it out of the box; now, you can easily lift the iMac off of the styrofoam bases and then pull the remaining foam off from the left and right. Much easier.

Enlarge/ The iMac and some of the styrofoam lifts off of a couple styrofoam bases...

Enlarge/ Peeling the cloth and plastic wrappers off of the iMac will reveal your new computer.

Andrew Cunningham

The first thing you notice once you've actually extricated the iMac from its various wrappings is that it is indeed much slimmer than previous models. It's not uniformly thin throughout as some of Apple's product photos would have you believe, but it is much thinner and much less boxy. The non-reflective screen is also immediately apparent; when I photograph most gadgets, I need to take great pains not to appear reflected in their super-glossy screens. You can't see me in the picture of the iMac despite the fact that I'm sitting right in front of it. Some reflections, especially light sources, still appear, but the situation is much improved over every iMac since the 2007 model introduced the aluminum-and-glass aesthetic to the line.

Enlarge/ The iMac looks the same from the front, if you don't count the non-reflective screen.

Enlarge/ But from the side, the computer is much slimmer. There is, of course, no optical drive.

Andrew Cunningham

We have yet to turn the system on, so we'll leave further observations for our full review. One final thing to note is the iMac's complement of ports. The 21.5-inch iMac picks up a second Thunderbolt port for the first time, and the SD card slot has been moved to the rear—in older iMacs the SD card slot was adjacent to the optical drive, and we've heard some horror stories about people who have inserted their cards into the wrong slot by mistake.

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Andrew Cunningham
Andrew wrote and edited tech news and reviews at Ars Technica from 2012 to 2017, where he still occasionally freelances; he is currently a lead editor at Wirecutter. He also records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites

135 Reader Comments

I know they're considered "old school" nowadays, but lacking an optical drive on a 27" machine seems a bit odd to me. My kids have plenty of movies they love to watch and re-watch on DVD and I've got some too. Isn't media-watching a big part of what you do with a 27" all-in-one? And unlike a laptop, on a 27" all-in-one there's no compelling "we needed to cut a quarter-inch of thickness" argument against including an optical drive.

Well then maybe once they open up a 27" machine you can repost that comment again. This is the 21.5".

Eva01

Same criticism applies to both machines. Multimedia-oriented desktops should have optical drives.

Not necessarily. I have a 2011, 13" MBP. I ripped out the DVD drive and now have 2 internal drives: 1 platter drive and 1 SSD. (Thank you, OWC.) Drive speeds are now faster than before. I also have an external CD/DVD drive, so no need for the internal. I maxed out the RAM to 16 GB. I'm all set. The same can be done to the iMac, as well. And if you need more storage, just get an external drive. Incidentally, sitting next to me is also a Linux/Windows God Box (tm). Despite the HUUGE case and tons of cooling and insane expansion capabilities, I haven't actually done anything more to it than add 1 extra drive (for a total of 2 now), which makes it on par with my Mac as far as upgrades go. Moral: more isn't always more.

Zinger1 wrote:

Definitely form over function. Forced to use a slower 2.5" drive, USB on the back (people use memory sticks all the time), non-upgradeable. No optical drive, I've ripped many a CD/DVD on mine, and sent in photo collections for art shows etc.

More power to them though for maintaining their high margin on a desktop, people seem to like it well enough. On a laptop you have to carry around I see the point, not so much on a desktop.

Same criticism applies to both machines. Multimedia-oriented desktops should have optical drives.

I've not missed a built-in turntable, cassette player or FM radio in my 2009 iMac either. And yet it covers most of the multimedia needs I've got (it's my primary jukebox, TV, Movie and internet video player).

Nor would I have a problem with using an external drive for the increasingly rare cases I actually need one. But still my computers all have a drive each, even though one for all would be plenty.

I'm actually considering to rip out the DVD drive and replace it with an additional SSD. That would effectively be a net gain for me.

I agree with two of those three parts. I'm not so sure about the design part: The SD card slot placement is pretty bad design*, and the bulbous back (while seldom seen) is a minor step backwards from the flat of the previous models.

*''Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,'' says Steve Jobs, Apple's C.E.O. ''People think it's this veneer -- that the designers are handed this box and told, 'Make it look good!' That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.'' (link)

Though… As a whole, it looks great.

Well, I would guess that you can learn to use the slot even without seeing it. And the bulbous back is more or less an illusion, since its not any thicker than the previous iMac was, it just looks like that because the edges are so much thinner.

I'm not saying the bulbous back is thicker, I'm just saying that it doesn't look as nice as last years model which is flatter and more harmonious. I just don't see any reason why we should give Apple a pass on this obvious hardware bug just because we can sort of work around it other than if we were to take the role of the apologist, and I don't want to take that role because the only reason I use Apple's hardware is that they historically have been great at making hardware* that has been nice to actually use.

*A few notable exceptions though: The puck mouse (sometimes defended by me because it worked well if you had small hands), the sharp wrist rest edges of the MacBook, the sharp handles on the heavy Mac Pro.

Having not yet seen it in the comments, my only grip is the relative impossibility of upgrading RAM. In the Apple Laptops (and one of two iMacs), I've pretty much ALWAYS given them a mid-live RAM and storage upgrade. The other iMac is getting 16 Gb for Xmas.

Now that it's necessary to grab the heat gun and guitar pics to upgrade RAM, it's looking like a lock to pay Apple's prices for RAM, or that two year upgrade cycle will just have a Craigslist component to it.

This is first time I have seam styrofoam in Apple packaging in years (not saying they stopped using just that I thought they had for environmental reasons). Just unpacked a Dell 27" display the other day. All folded cardboard. Apparently foam is sexy again, and I don't think the curvilinear profile of iMac is de determining factor.

Even iMac model since the white plastic one has used styrofoam in its packaging.

I have a USB extension lead connected permanently and use that to plug in my camera or iPad.

Yeah, I know that's the obvious solution, but it still shouldn't be necessary. And it doesn't help you when you are dealing with servicing tons of iMacs and need a quick and dirty way to copy over some files (as I have had to do). I don't understand why the brilliant designers at Apple find it so difficult to implement an easily accessible port that doesn't ruin the aesthetic experience.

I think that you would find Air Drop would be a much simpler and quicker process than inserting and ejecting discs into tons of iMacs.

One thing just occurred to me: They have saved a comparatively massive amount of weight in the new machines (and thus quite a bit on the environmental footprint during production and shipping by air).

And that may in fact be directly related to the machines being glued shut now, since only this way the huge display unit becomes a load-bearing structural component and thus the rear shell can be made substantially thinner (as in wall thickness) and lighter without compromising overall stability.

Effectively, they're applying what they've learned about building extremely thin and light notebook displays to the entire iMac, which is structurally almost the same thing now, just on a bigger scale.

As long as the displays were just snapped in with magnets, the rear shell had to carry the mechanical loads pretty much all by itself and would have had to be much thicker and thus heavier.

I have pretty much the same misgivings about this as anybody else from a (mostly just potential) tinkerer's point of view, but when I think of it, this decision may actually go quite a bit deeper than just being about saving a few pennies on the magnets holding the display in.

Achieving the same result without gluing the machine together may actually be quite difficult – unless you're happy with a bunch of unsightly screws all around the display, that is. And I know of a certain designer and quite a few users who might not be particularly ecstatic about that kind of alternative (myself included again).

By the way: The most obvious and most stable way of stacking the boxes in a crate or on a shipping palette would be by turning them on their sides and then alternating them that way.

I have a USB extension lead connected permanently and use that to plug in my camera or iPad.

Yeah, I know that's the obvious solution, but it still shouldn't be necessary. And it doesn't help you when you are dealing with servicing tons of iMacs and need a quick and dirty way to copy over some files (as I have had to do). I don't understand why the brilliant designers at Apple find it so difficult to implement an easily accessible port that doesn't ruin the aesthetic experience.

I think that you would find Air Drop would be a much simpler and quicker process than inserting and ejecting discs into tons of iMacs.

AirDrop doesn't work with the majority of Macs out there. If he is servicing tons of iMacs, it is likely that they are not all brand-new iMacs from 2011 or later. So AirDrop is pretty useless. Also, when you use AirDrop, the other Mac receiving the file must manually accept the file. Not exactly convenient if no one else is around to accept the file request.

The iMac is no longer "all in one" if you need external drives and dongles to restore features that many people still use on a regular basis. The new iMac no longer features audio-in, so you need to add a dongle if you need that feature.

I too would prefer the SD card slot to be in a more easily accessible location. The slot is clearly in a horrible location for regular use.

My theory is that it isn't intended for frequent use as would be typical for some photographers or other users. Instead it seems that this port might have been intended to provide a fallback for admin work. Perhaps Apple has discovered that people aren't really using the SD slot very much and thus feel that inconveniencing a minority of users is worthwhile because it provides an improved aesthetic and lower cost for the majority of users.

The crippled 21.5" version is nothing to get excited about. If Apple insists on removing features from a desktop computer to make them optional accessories, then don't charge the same price as the previous model that included those features. The speed increase isn't that spectacular. Even the base model 27" now costs $100 more than the previous model that included features that were removed. If you want to remove features, great, but how about lowering the price a few bucks for those features that were removed? The non-upgradable memory and slow laptop drive in the 21.5" model would be enough of a reason to avoid that one. The $1,299 model doesn't even allow a hard drive upgrade. You are stuck with the slow drive. You have to get the $1,499 model if you want a fast hard drive. Add 16GB of RAM and the 1TB Fusion Drive, and now you are at $1,949! Ouch! The 27" at $1,799 at least gives you a fast hard drive and upgradable memory options by the user.

Your rant would be a whole lot more convincing if it got the basic facts correct. For example:"The $1,299 model doesn't even allow a hard drive upgrade. You are stuck with the slow drive."You do know that there are these things called USB3 drives, right? If you want a fast drive but don't want to pay much, buy a USB3 SSD and boot off that.

If you want a really cheap system, with basically the same computational performance, and don't care about aesthetics or screen quality, then buy a mac mini. If you REALLY believe that this machine is a worse deal than the previous iMac, then BUY a previous iMac --- you can get them on eBay, on Amazon, even at the Apple refurb store.

I'm all for complaining about a system when there are real problems. But this sort of mindless bitching that insists black is white, and that whatever was improved is unimportant whereas whatever was removed is absolutely vital, really pisses me off.

Lack of optical drive is no longer a concern for me. All DVDs and Blurays are ripped and stored on the home server, in fact only the bluray drive is even used any more for ripping movies otherwise I don't remember the last time I used a CD/DVD. All software/drivers is backed up as DMG or ISO on network storage as well.

Keeping it on DVD/BR prevents it from being played back on a tablet, so the solution can't be to add a drive to those.

You say the lack of an optical is of no concern and then go on to list the uses you have for an optical! You may have an external or another machine with one in but is it unreasonable for somebody else to want their "ALL-in-one" computer to contain one?

I am saying that I could be a demographic for it. I have a server that has an optical drive on it that can rip movies. I don't need more than one in the house, because I don't use disks. What is so hard to understand? So you don't have a second computer in your house, thats awesome, good for you.

For what its worth, I also don't have an optical drive on my tablet but I can still watch movies. I also don't have an optical drive in my car, but bluetooth and my phone deal with that. Lack of an optical drive hasn't been a big issue for a long time. Actually, even for software I haven't had anything shrink wrapped in a very long time, the closest was Office from black friday a year or two back, but I just used the key and the download from digital river.

I wouldn't buy it for plenty of reasons, but lack of an optical drive is no longer a driver for me.